Karma

We all go through life dealing with or fighting our own karma, or so I believe, anyway.

I was a hyper-active child and perhaps wore my mother down to a state of submission, very quickly. We siblings were all at least six years apart and I was the middle child. My parents owned and ran a very large restaurant and bar and had little time for tender interludes with us.

My brother, the first born, was highly intelligent and held the expected position of great honor and hopes. I was the second child, and my sister, was the third and only girl.

Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, I was afforded the luxury of being left free to roam and wander perhaps more than a child of my age should. My childhood was very interesting for many lurid reasons, but perhaps I have said too much.

I mention all of this only so that you will see the humor of it all. I was an impatient child with little adult interference and grew into an impatient and independent adult.

I worked as a self employed contractor all of my working career and drove from job to job, several times a day.

My karma is to always be behind the slowest and most distracted drivers around. I will go around the slow poke in front of me and try to zoom ahead of him only to find myself stuck behind his twin. That and being attractive to all manner of crazy people and drunks is my karma. They constantly want to befriend me and come home with me. My life has been interesting to say the least.

My wife, on the other hand, grew up in a very stable and pleasant atmosphere. I might call it boring if I was to compare it to mine. Here father worked a nine to five job and her mother stayed at home to watch over her two children. One might call their lives a paradise, but then karma steps in.

My wife is of average height, but long legged and having a somewhat short torso. We go to the theater often. Both to movies and live plays and concerts. The people who sit in front of my wife and now us are always late and from an amateur basketball team.

I have gotten to the point now where I sit in the row in front of my wife to throw off the seating to our advantage if we aren’t in the newer theaters with stadium seating. I also cary yellow construction tape just in case. Once everyone is settled in, I leave that row and come back to sit with my wife.

If you have ever come into a theater to find several seats blocked off with yellow, plastic, construction tape, be assured that we are close by.

It took me several years to believe it, but this karma thing is absolutely true.

Once on a trip from L. A. X. to Peru, I spotted a man acting unusual in the waiting area with us.

He was wearing camouflage and had a wine bota around his neck. He would stare at an individual for an inordinately long period of time and then go on to the next. Obviously, he was looking for me. I pointed him out to my wife and then pointed to the mirrored window behind us. “He will be having visitors soon,” I announced to her.

Sure enough, he was soon escorted away by two burley men in black suites. After some time he returned with them and was introduced to the loading agent as we stood behind him. “He is to have no alcohol on this flight,” they informed the young woman loading us on to the plane.

I could smell the aroma of thorazine or some other medical compound emanating from him. “Interesting,” I thought. He was also flying on a Russian passport. Even more interesting.

I looked at my wife and said, “He will be sitting between us on the flight dear.” She, knowing my karma by now, shook her head in agreement and smiled the smile of the exhausted.

We boarded the plane, and by some miracle, he was not next to us, but in front instead. Yes, he blocked my wife’s view of the movies all the way to Florida and noticed me immediately.

I looked for him on the layover there, so we might chat, because that too is part of my karma, but I could not find him. Perhaps he had to check in with his handlers by phone there.

Sure enough, he was back on our plane to Peru when we boarded the plane for the next leg of our journey.

When we landed, he soon disappeared into the airport and then the Peruvian jungles I presume. For what nefarious reasons, I have no idea.

Sorry for the length of this story, but some tales must be told in their entirety. Sadly or interestingly my wife might say, I have plenty more stories like this. It’s just my karma.